Saturday, January 2

spinning plastic into gold

my littlest sister has had to teach me three times now how to crochet, but now I think I've just about got it down in my memory for good. the trouble has been that I really don't have piles of yarn lying about. and I always lose the crochet hooks. but about a month ago, I discovered just how easy it is to make yarn out of plastic bags. they call it plarn. a ridiculous coinage, you might say, but whatever you want to call it, it's fun.

so far I have made two things out of this very cool plastic yarn: the little basket you see in my blurry photograph there, and a cylindrical plastic bag holder for my very clever sister and her family. how awesomely recursive is that? a plastic bag holder made out of plastic bags.

I find that I enjoy slicing up the plastic, weaving it together, and rolling it all up into giant balls way more than actually crocheting with the stuff. it's relaxing. it's simple and productive and gives your hands something to do while you're watching movies. we'll see if I end up using it all for anything. there are billions of interesting tutorials out there. but which ones would actually be worth trying?